Thread: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and how sexism is now partisan

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and how sexism is now partisan

By Janell Ross December 31, 2015

For the last few days, we Americans have occupied the spectator seats at a match between candidates with competing views of what sexism really is, as well as when and how it can disqualify one from doing a very important job.

Among the many ideological differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are competing views of what's acceptable, what's not (but forgivable), and what's so far out of bounds that the parties involved have no business anywhere near the White House.

To really sort this one out you have to consider all sorts of questions. Here is a short list: The innards of the Clinton marriage as well as two previous Trump ones, whether a decision not to divorce is an endorsement of all of one's spouse's actions, at what point any of this should be a matter of public inquiry and whether or for how long what one did in the past should shape the future.

What's made this all so uncomfortable to watch — and quite frankly, to write about — is that one candidate who says a lot about everyone and has his own complicated marital history is now calling the other candidate's husband sexist because of L'Affaire de Lewinsky during the Clinton years in the White House. And, of course, there are the many other questions, allegations and lawsuits stemming from Bill Clinton's alleged approach to marriage. GOP front-runner Trump has all but said that leading Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton's own credibility on the I-call-sexism front is severely compromised. According to Trump, Hillary Clinton's ongoing marriage to Bill Clinton is the embodiment of a sexist problem.

On the other side, Hillary Clinton has had some things to say about some of Donald Trump's comments to and about women in his many years in public life, last month, and over the last week. Trump's particular way of dealing with women, whether he admits it or not, is a phenomenon nearly as well-documented as Bill Clinton's, since Trump opted to do and say a lot of these things on tape or to the press. And, now that Trump raised the details of the Clinton marriage circa late 1998 — which The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus called "fair game" — that would seem to open the door to discussion of the contents of all those stories written about the sordid details of the first Trump divorce circa 1990, his remarriage circa 1993 and second split circa 1997.

Now, some might say that there are all sorts of private, complicated things between couples that lead some to divorce and some to remain married. And they might be right. Some would also say that even the private behavior of a president, can compromise focus and attention needed to manage critical domestic and international responsibilities. And when a president then lies under oath about those activities, this becomes a clear matter of public concern. These people might also be right.

But do you see the problem here? By either measure both the Clintons' marriage and Trump's marriages are either not suitable for public exploration or totally are. And that still does not resolve the question of to what degree Hillary Clinton's political future should really be dictated by the actions of a man to whom she has decided to remain married.

All of this should, on a logical plane where egos, ambition and the desire for elected office do not reign, be enough to keep both sides relatively quiet. Historically, philandering and marital arrangements of all kinds have not disqualified men from leading. "Official mistress of the king" or some man of note was an actual title or accepted role that once existed in many a kingdom and marriage.

And if we are all the way real, Bill Clinton is far from the only married president or national political figure believed by his biographers to have had some sort of sexual relations with someone not their spouse.

Monica Lewinsky meeting President Bill Clinton at a White House function was submitted as evidence in documents by the Starr investigation and released by the House Judiciary committee in 1988.

This is a pattern that cuts across parties and decades. It includes many of the men who drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and saw the country through world wars and the Great Depression.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (AP)

The list of men who could be included here is, indeed, very, very long. If that, to you sounds like a dismissive rationalization, you again, might be right. But the fact is, fidelity -- particularly male fidelity -- has never been regarded as an essential practice or quality to govern. Not here, in the United States. Not anywhere that we know of at all.

On July 29, 2014, after a 50-year court seal expired, the Library of Congress posted a trove of about 1,000 pages of sometimes-steamy love letters between Warren Harding, who died in office in 1923, and his mistress Carrie Phillips. (Reuters/Library of Congress)

Similarly, in the past, and probably some private, off-mic, off-Twitter all-male spaces in the present, some of Trump's known commentary on women has also been acceptable.

It's debatable whether Trump's relatively recent verbal repertoire — he's called women he does not like "fat pigs," sent a columnist a note describing the female column writer as a person with "the face of a dog," described his own daughter in public as someone he would consider in other ways if she weren't his daughter, told a contestant on his business-themed reality TV show the seeing her, "on her knees," must be enjoyable, offered his thoughts on Carly Fiorina's face, described Hillary Clinton's need to use the ladies room during a debate commercial break as "disgusting," and said that a reporter's questions and demeanor were driven by her menstrual cycle — would ever have been regarded as reasonable in mixed company.

But disrespectful behavior, particularly anything that might be offensive to entire groups, has also, thus far, helped keep Trump on top of the polls. So, Hillary Clinton and others may consider his behavior unreasonably boorish or indicative of character traits and views that make him unsuitable for the Oval Office. But it's quite clear that lots of other people do not agree.

And then there's the political issue without much in the way of public precedent. Hillary Clinton is not the one who narrowly avoided impeachment for lying under oath about an affair. Her husband is. Still, she was the First Lady, wife and a political advisor to Bill Clinton during the time when the Clinton White House and its surrogates sought to portray Lewinsky as a flirtatious, unstable woman. That is a litany that has some long historical roots in efforts to publicly discredit women.

So what now? Who can really arbitrate who is the bigger sexist or which bits of whose marriages matter? The answer is likely no one. All this will do is harden Clinton's diehard supporters, and Trump's too. It will remind those who remember the nauseating quality of the news during the Lewinsky scandal of that time. This is part of Bill Clinton's legacy. Reminders will leave those unsure about either Clinton and those who despise them less apt to want to see them return to the White House. The same is also true of any kind of just-the-facts list of public comments made by Trump about women, and what's been reported about his private life. And so it seems that what sexism is and who it disqualifies is, apparently, one issue around which Americans will probably grow more polarized in 2016.

There is also this:

While we've spent most of this week listening to Clinton vs. Trump war over sexism, the gender wage gap remains. The, the volume of pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment complaints filed by workers with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can not be described as small. Most moms and dads still aren't equally dividing household and family responsibilities. In fact, they don't even agree about how much each of them really do. And, of course, the United States remains the only advanced economy in the world where parental leave is not guaranteed.

Defining sexism and exploring other people's marriages won't address any of that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ur-husband-is/

Sexism is not partisan. This premise of the article is wrong. No one cares about extramarital affairs. That's not what Americans are concerned with. And no one cares that Donald Trump called Rosie O'Donnell as fat pig AFTER she made fun of him and his hair. You punch Trump, he'll punch you back, whether you're male or female. That is not sexism.

And no one cares if he wrote a note to a reporter who lied about him and told her she had the face of a dog. She lied about him, that's an attack, and he punches back. That is not sexism. He would have said something equally to a man if a man had done it.

Donald Trump never said a word about Megan Kelly's period, the media did that and totally lied about what he meant when he said "wherever". Jumping from "wherever" to "menstruation" when he's talking about her steaming mad and blood coming out of her ears and "wherever" is not sexism, the jump the media made is sexism.

Same with Rolling Stones editor publishing an off the cuff comment that Trump said in private about Carly Fiorina's face when he saw her on the news and he was referring to her expressions and persona, to calling her ugly on her looks, isn't sexism, the editor who insisted that statement be published to humiliate Carly with a private statement Trump made referring to something else is sexism.

Trump didn't criticize Hillary for taking a bathroom break during the bathroom break during the Debate, he criticized her for being late back to the Debate following the break, so late they had to start the Debate without her. This was the second time she was late. She'd been late back to the Debate in a prior Debate, but not so late that they had to start without her.

Media lies about Donald Trump aren't facts and they aren't going to fly. Media making statements that Trump didn't make is dishonest and when it's thrown against women, that means the media is sexist, not Donald Trump.

Women do not want pandering, we don't want special consideration for ordinary matters like being on time to a national televised Debate. We don't want female leaders who use their sex to glean special benefits or excuses for failure. Those of us who have trail-blazed fields of work by having to work far more for far less to prove we can do these jobs and cut a path for more women in those fields based on competency, results and benefits for the employer in return for equal pay and opportunity at some point, despise this tactic and resent the women who exploit it.

Trump was asked by numerous reporters does his marital background become "fair game" when he punched back at Hillary for falsely accusing him of "penchant sexism", and you know what he said? He said "absolutely". Trump doesn't want special treatment, he wants honest fair treatment, and there's nothing "partisan" or "sexist" about that.

Also, Trump isn't saying that Hillary is a bad person because she stayed married to Bill Clinton. What he's saying is she's an exploitative hypocrite for abusing the women he had his affairs with by demeaning them, either through silence, threats, attacks or some combinations of all of the above and then daring to call Trump a "penchant sexist" for pointing out that she was so late to the Debate after the break that they had to start it without her. He doesn't know what she was doing, he was asking "where was Hillary"? Which is a perfectly appropriate question. Something as important as a televised national debate with millions of viewers and they had to start without her? Come On! You really think if Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley had been late back to the Debate after the break and they had to start without them that Trump wouldn't have said "where was Bernie?" or "where was Martin"? Of course he would have.

As a working woman who has worked since I was 14, I appreciate this issue being discussed and hopefully Americans will get it right this time. Women do not want nor have most of us ever wanted special treatment, special privileges, special opportunities or special excuses to live and function in our country as equal citizens, because we're women. All that we have ever asked for is what we're entitled to which is equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work.

And if Hillary and the Democrats are unhappy about this conversation, then they only have themselves to blame. When their front-runner in the Democratic primary race can't woman up and take a legitimate criticism for being so late in returning from a break that they had to start the Debate it without her, then she isn't woman enough to hold the position of President of the United States. All she had to do in response to Donald Trump's criticism is apologize for being tardy to an important event with an important time-table, but instead and maybe he knew her well enough to bait her into it, she wrongfully threw out the sexism card to try to make herself a victim of her own lack of punctuality as if because she's a woman she can be late everywhere she goes and either make people wait on her or miss roll call.

Maybe in her past positions of First Lady, US Senator and Secretary of State, being punctual isn't important, but as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, being on time is important. Ask any private.